So I dont know if you guys remember my saga with the shitty design on LS blocks and old style chevy starters, but long story short, they rip themselves out of the block by the mounting point/ear.

Well, mine had ripped itself out a while back, I had the piece welded back on and its been fine for whatever the last 6 months or so.

Wellllllll it finally broke again, and this time, it cracked the block on the other side as well, meaning im out a block. Fortunately, the car only ran for about 5 seconds like that, so im thinking that my crank and stuff is salvageable.

We are going to tear into the car on Sunday, and at the moment the plan is to reuse everything on the car but replace it with a 6.0 iron block, and forged rods and pistons, new bearings etc. I currently have 243 heads worked over pretty good and down to 59cc so that should get me somewhere around 11:1 compression on 4.005 bore, but im thinking about going to 4.030 bore to make a nice, reliable, monster 370ci LQ motor that should work well with my current heads and cam.

hoping to make something like 450 rwhp and 450 rwtq, up about 50/70 from the ls motor, and really ready for some boost with a set of 317 heads later down the road.

So is this issue only on the aluminum block motors and not the iron blocks?

You didn't switch to the truck style starter?

I've never heard of one breaking after installing a truck style starter.

correct. And the issue does not exist with the new style starter aka the 'truck starter' on the LS motors, since it changes how the torque is applied to the flywheel/starter/block

had I known about the issue originally, and replaced the original starter with the truck style starter, it never would have broke int he first place.

My problem came from the original starter cracking the far mounting point on the block, and then being welded back together.

Either way, as soon as it broke the block the first time I was living on borrowed time.

yes, right, mine only broke after welding the old mounting point back on, and it just wasnt strong enough where the weld was.

Oh i did, but where it was welded just wasnt strong enough, even with the truck starter.

Every break is a little different, but happens around that outside mounting point. In my case, it broke very far out on it and there was just not enough aluminum there to make it strong enough.. it broke along the screw mount about 3-6 millimeters in a diagonal line.

Actually the short ear breaks off from the torque and when the starter kicks out sideways it rips the block out.

Understand.

Wonder if the bracket works better?

Yea the starter itself actually breaks, and it breaks that mounting point that is still connected.

Since the point we fixed couldnt handle the stress, it broke, and GOOD this time.

I hear the bracket is a permanent fix, but it costs almost as much as an entire 6.0 iron block, so im not out much money, just car downtime and work.

Before this ongoing debacle, I never really realized how much beastly multiplicative torque a starter has.

Jerry Seinfeld selling 16 Porsches.

http://money.cnn.com/gallery/luxury/...che/index.html

Need to check my powerball numbers after tonight's drawing to see if I can participate in the auction.

I have really wanted an older 911 since I was little and had posters of them in my room growing up. Apparently there are a lot like me that have driven the price up to absurd levels in the past few years. I did get a chance to drive a 95 993 a few times and while the interior was very confining (you are close to touching shoulders with passenger) I completely loved how much of a raw drivers car it was.